Category: Social Media

What began as a social networking application for students at Harvard in 2003 has blossomed.  Today it’s the social media giant that billions of authors consult every day. You can find a timeline of Facebook’s evolution here. While the social network’s growth can be neatly mapped out, it is a bit more difficult for users to understand how to use all of its newer features. That’s why we’ve decided to lay out a revamped guide to Facebook as one of the handiest tools in an author’s belt.

Social Media Stories

The Facebook Story is a newer function that you might be overlooking. Inspired by Snapchat, then adopted by Instagram, Facebook also added this feature to its dashboard in 2017.

• How to use it – By clicking the camera icon on the upper-left-hand-side of your mobile app, you can take pictures and videos of your choosing. After that step, you will be prompted by three options: “Effects,” “Save,” and “Your Story.” The Effects option allows for different filter/sticker/text/location edits to add that extra pizzazz to your content. Save allows you to store this content on your mobile device.  Your Story allows you to load content to the designated bar at the top of your audience’s feed. You can find stories below the search bar of your app, represented by a circle containing your profile picture. You can also simultaneously load content to your story and your feed by selecting the option before you post. Each of these posts can be up to 20 seconds long and will expire after 24 hours.

This changes the game for a once text-oriented platform. The Facebook Story is a great opportunity for authors to share quick snapshots of a new book jacket, merchandise, or even your breakfast -it is a simple, free way to both promote a product and interact with your following.

Live Streaming 

Facebook Live functions as a branch of the Facebook Story. Below the search bar in the Facebook application, you will find the status bar. There are three options located in the status text box: “Live,” “Photo,” and “Check In.”

• How to use it – Live is represented with a video camera icon; upon clicking this icon, a camera view similar to that of the Story comes up. The difference with Live is that you are sending a video in real-time to your audience. You can add a text description to your video, for example, “ARC Unboxing!” Live also comes with its own set of filters and effects, you can even invite another user to conference in your broadcast (by selecting the “Bring a Friend” option). You can choose where your Live video appears by tapping the “To:” drop-down, where you can make your broadcast public, address only your audience, or share it to specific groups you are a part of on Facebook. Like Stories, you can simultaneously upload a live broadcast to your story and your feed. Facebook live also displays how many people of your group are online, which makes choosing the most high-volume time for your broadcast a breeze.

Live is useful for broadcasting an event, making announcements about your product, or generally interacting with your audience. Users can comment on your Live broadcast and fielding those questions/comments can build a rewarding repartee between you and your following.

You can find more information on the basic functions of social media like Facebook here. Make the best of your Facebook following with these new tools!

Social media can be a useful tool for authors and personal brands. It can help with exposure, lead to new fans of your book(s), and is an easy platform to publicly engage with your audience or other book lovers like bloggers and reviewers.

The other side of that coin, however, is murky. The last week has been a storm of revelations over Facebook and how it uses information from its users by selling it to advertisers—and, once that information has been sold, your data belongs to them forever!  You can only tighten your personal Facebook privacy and security settings so that future information cannot be sold (read this New York Times article for more information on the updated privacy security settings Facebook released this week).

Worse, Facebook has allegedly been logging data from calls and texts from Google Androids—even though Facebook says they do not sell that logged data. (This article from Wall Street Journal explains.)

Now, companies and people are taking a stand against Facebook with the #DeleteFacebook movement. Mozilla is “taking a break,” and Elon Musk has removed Tesla and SpaceX pages, among others.

So what can individuals and their brands do if they’re concerned about privacy and are considering deleting social media?

If you use Facebook and other social media, and are now unsure of whether or not you want to continue, you must consider how you are going to get your brand out there.  Here are a few ideas:

1. Create a public author or brand page, but keep your personal Facebook settings private. Author and brand pages are public, so if anyone were to search you, those would come up. But what if your private Facebook account also shows up and strangers try to add you? By going into the Facebook security settings, make sure that only “Friends” or “Friends of Friends” can see your profile information, or even set it so that only you can see certain things like your current hometown or who you’re in a relationship with. In your privacy settings you can also make sure that your personal profile does not come up in web searches.

2. If you plan on deleting Facebook, then you have to put yourself out there. If you’ve gotten rid of your social media presence, then you need to make up for it by putting yourself out there in person. Attend festivals, visit your local bookstore and library, go to conferences, meet with other authors or book lovers, and create postcards/bookmarks to drop off at local coffee shops or stores you inhabit. Read more in our blog post on how you can create visibility.

3. Focus on a blog and newsletter. If you are concerned about your privacy, but want to have an online existence, then creating or focusing more on your website/blog and sending out an email newsletter to friends, family, and those who signed up is a good way to keep your audience updated on what’s going on with your writing endeavors.

This is all “new news” that exposes just how much Facebook was really using our data beyond their own advertising platform. The least we can all do right now is tighten our private security settings across social media platforms so that our personal data can’t be used in the way it has in the past.